


Dreamgirl

by Venusofthehardsell



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Manipulation, Masturbation, Violence, coffee shop au to please just kill me, look it starts off sweetly enough and then it just gets worse with each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-27 01:29:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venusofthehardsell/pseuds/Venusofthehardsell
Summary: Bucky tries to adjust to his new life in the Avengers compound. One day he meets a girl who might be everything he needs in order to move on, but is his past really that far away?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor's "In the Dark" challenge and still not finished, woops. I will update the tags as I write, but bear in mind this is supposed to be a so-called dark fic, even if it starts mildly, so the non-con warning is there for a reason. The chapter count might also change.
> 
> Enjoy and let me know what you think!

The sheet is tangled so tightly around his legs he is sure it’s trying to stop the flow of blood to his feet. The whole bed is wet and cold with sweat and a shudder runs through his body.  
He is still sweating. He knows he should pull one of the blankets over himself, because even if his insides feels on fire, his skin is icy to the touch. The summer nights have been treacherous as of late, but the high tech self-regulating cooling system in the building should take care of that. _Should_.

His head is pounding and he knows that even if he manages to fall asleep again, he won’t get the hours he needs.

Bucky’s dreams are getting worse.

When he realises the faint light of dawn is getting brighter outside, he gives up fighting with the sheet and tears through it. The two white halves of linen sinks to the floor in silence like the echoes of distant ghosts. He will have to see if he can stitch them back together later. The day is already off to a bad start and he doesn’t need to hear Stark lecturing him about defacing borrowed property. Again.  
No, what he needs is to clear his head.

He can’t even hear his own footsteps as he crosses the room and opens the bathroom door. His own stealth unnerves him sometimes. Clenching his jaw, Bucky makes sure to close the door behind him. The soft click of the lock is somehow comforting.  
As is the water splashing onto the crown of his head and running down the length of his body, rinsing away the stench of sweat and nightmares. That’s why he sleeps naked; it’s less of a hassle in the mornings.

He turns up the heat as far as it will go and waits until the metal plates in his arm have absorbed the warmth.

With quick, efficient movements, he begins to jerk himself off under the shower. As with everything else in his life, he goes about the task with the cold detachment of a soldier that HYDRA perfected in him.

There is nothing sensual about the way he pumps himself towards completion, nothing gentle about the squeeze of his balls in his flesh hand. He just wants some sort of release, and he knows exactly which buttons to press for his body to respond. It’s another part of him that, despite Shuri and the rest of Wakanda’s finest scientists’ best efforts, remain more automatized than human.

Biting his lower lip hard, he tries to imagine someone else’s hand stroking his shaft. A smaller, more delicate hand, nails painted red perhaps.

It doesn’t work.

In the past, Sergeant James Barnes would have thought of a girl he had taken dancing back before he got shipped out. Billowing skirt, shoes with soles that clicked merrily against the cobblestones, all done up for him and glowing when she saw him, handsome in his still pristine uniform. How she blushed when he smiled at her, how she gasped as his fingers trailed up her thighs, the tightness around his cock as he filled her - or maybe some local European farmer’s daughter who had spared him a lingering glance and a pretty smile as he marched by. He would have thought of her coming to him in the lonely hours of the foreign night, whispering soothing nothings in his ear while her hand crawled into his trousers and gently began stroking his length.  
She would kiss his neck and tell him how brave and beautiful he was, her warm body pressed close to his while she worked him into a blissful, private ecstasy with a hand not made of metal, and he would fall asleep with the certainty that once the war was over he would return back home and find a girl of his own.

Bucky knows somewhere deep in the shadows of his mind that those fantasies had felt pleasant and a lot more satisfying than the solitude of the shower stall. He has tried time and time again to call up the images of the girls from the past. Not a single one of them remains to him.

There are of course modern women who tickle his fancy every day. Steve’s friend from SHIELD, the receptionist who works weekends in Stark Tower, the blonde who sometimes walks her dog in the park when he runs, the modelesque beauties leaving Sam’s room after a night out, the woman reading the weather forecast on TV. Even the girl who delivered pizza to the compound last week had made Bucky look twice, with her pierced lips and dark green eyeshadow.

No matter how hard he tries, however, he can’t picture them in his mind when he puts his hands on his cock. They become fleeting ideas in his head, words without meaning, too distant and abstract to turn him on.

In the end, he is left with no imaginary aid and pure physicality will have to do.

He cums with a short groan in the back of his throat. The water washes it all away and it only takes him a few deep breaths to get his heart rate back to normal.

It’s 5 a.m. when he dons a pair of black sweatpants, a matching tank top and a dark grey sweatshirt to hide his metal arm. It’ll be too warm later in the day, but as long as he can get his morning run done before the sun rises too high, it’s manageable.

He slips past Steve’s room quietly and out through one of the kitchen doors without meeting anyone.

Once outside, he takes off down his usual path. The air is clear and still. Nothing moves except for him. The pale golden disc of the sun has not entirely let go of the horizon yet, clinging on for one last kiss before the day can truly begin. The world still holds its breath.

The streets are all but deserted at this hour, or at least the ones he takes. Bucky has deliberately planned this route through trial and error with that particular criteria in mind. He rarely, if ever, runs into anyone. He prefers it that way.

Today is a rare one, however.

As he nears the park, he spots a girl hurrying along its fences. She doesn’t look at him and normally Bucky wouldn’t acknowledge her, either, but his enhanced senses doesn’t miss the fact that something small falls out of her pocket and lands on the pavement while she marches on, clearly focused on reaching her destination fast rather than pay attention to her surroundings. Bucky changes course and picks up what turns out to be a blister pack with four of the little capsule pills popped. He doesn’t recognise the long Latin name of the drug on the back of it, but it seems important.

For a moment he considers dropping it back onto the pavement and hope she comes back for it herself. If it _is_ important, she’ll notice the medicine is gone and go back to look for it. There won’t be a lot of people around at this time of day so chances are no one will take it for at least an other hour.

Then, just as he is about to put it back down, an unwelcome thought creeps into his mind in a nasty little voice that resembles Stark’s a bit too much: _what would Steve have done?_

Bucky almost groans.

Yes, what _would_ Steve have done?

Medication on prescription is expensive. He doesn’t know what it’s for, but it could potentially be something that saves her life - or ends it if she doesn’t take it. Besides, littering is bad form.

He rolls his eyes hard at himself and takes off again after the girl.

She has entered the park, presumably to cut a corner towards the main street, when Bucky catches up.

“Excuse me? Miss? You dropped this,” he calls out when he gets close and the girl stops, turning around. For a second, Bucky forgets to breathe.

“Thank you.” She eyes him warily when he offers her the blister pack, but she takes the pills from him regardless. Her fingers faintly brush against his hand when she does and his heart does a weird off-kilter somersault in his chest at the contact. “It would have been a pain to lose these.”

And then she smiles at him.

It doesn’t matter that she looks pale and tired, or that her hair is slightly messy and her posture is already halfway turned away from him in her haste.

The small, tentative smile she offers makes Bucky feel warm inside, fuzzy almost and he smiles back with the slightest tinge of red in his cheeks.

“Take care,” he says lamely and then she’s gone, hurrying on down the street until she turns a corner and he loses sight of her.

Bucky feels strangely bereft when he returns to his route. Normally, he is focused on running, on the path ahead of him, on the movement of his legs and strain in his muscles, but now all he keeps seeing is her.

The early sunlight in her messy bed hair.

He turns and runs down by the lake in the park. The gravel crunches beneath his feet, but the sound is faint. His cheeks are still warm with the lingering rush of blood her smile caused to flood his face. It’s an odd sensation. During all his years as HYDRA’s Asset, he never blush, he’s sure of that.

And all the blushing he has done since his return from the darkness didn’t feel like this at all.

The soft shape of her lips when she smiled at him…

An urge Bucky hasn’t felt in a very long time stirs somewhere deep inside of him. It’s not feral or aggressive, just… warm. Tiny, but warm. It has always been there in the oppressed depths of his tortured humanity, he realises as he allows himself to be reacquainted with the little spark after all those years as a stove away in his own mind.  
The Asset repressed and ignored it for so long it almost withered, but now that it has Bucky’s attention again it’s determined to make up for all the lost time. It screams and cries at him, demanding to be fed, revelling in the brief second her hand touched his as he handed her back the pills. Because that’s what it is, this need, it’s what it craves: touch.

Not just any kind of touch, but the certain gentle and soft kind only an intimate partner can provide. Affection. Desire. Loving kisses and caresses long into the night.

Bucky has to stop running and close his eyes so hard the world keens. Even with eyes shut, her face is clear as day.

He rubs his eyes as if that might make her go away. Then he takes a few deep breaths, shakes his head and takes off around the lake faster than before.

It’s usually not something he does in public, sprinting like that. He’s too fast for people not to notice something is different about him. But right now, all he cares about is getting the image of the girl out of his mind again. It feels unnatural, the way he can’t seem to let her go. God, he even remembers her nail polish with little yellow hearts on each meticulously shaped nail.

He groans in frustration and pushes himself to run even faster. Hell, it’s still early and there are not a lot of people around to see him.

After having been around the lake so many times he has completely lost count, Bucky is actually sweating and maybe a little more clear-headed - _though not a lot_, he thinks, biting the inside of his cheek. He slows to a jog and takes another few rounds at a more civilised pace, trying to look at the trees this time.

They’re lush and green and almost a little menacing in the early daylight, but he prefers them to the sinister high-rises jutting up from the asphalt all over the city like a sea of mismatched teeth reaching to chew at the sky. Trees in parks have no such appetites. They bloom and grow and shed their leaves in the winter even when they are trimmed or cut down to half their size.  
The city isn’t regulated that way. It reaches up and down and out, devouring the land little by little until, he imagines, the entire globe has become a single gargantuan metropolis, glittering artificially in the big black nothingness of space. Will there still be trees left then?

The young James Barnes loved the city with all its sizzling technology and promise of wonders beyond belief. This older, damaged version of him is less thrilled. He prefers the trees.

The subject of vegetation actually manages to take his mind off the girl and distract him for as long as it takes him to wander into the coffee shop he sometimes stops by before going back. There is nothing wrong with drinking coffee back at the compound, but this way he has more time to himself. Away from Stark. Away from Steve.

And today he figures he needs the extra minutes.

The old-fashioned bell chimes above the door when he enters. It is the only thing he registers before he finds himself in front of the counter and face to face with… her.

Bucky’s world freezes on its axis.

__________

_[TRANSMISSION]_

_ORION:_ MISSION STATUS

_ALHABOR:_ ASSET LOCATED. PATTERN OBSERVED. ESTABLISH CONTACT?  
_ORION:_ PROCEED ACCORDING TO PLAN  
_ORION:_ COMPLETE REPORT VIA SAFER CHANNEL  
_ALHABOR:_ UNDERSTOOD  
_ORION:_ HAIL HYDRA  
_ALHABOR:_ HAIL HYDRA


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky can tell she recognises him from the way her face lights up in a perfectly glowing smile.

“Hi,” she beams at him.

She is wearing makeup now, lips perfectly painted and eyes expertly defined with mascara and shadows. Her hair is no longer the unruly bedhead she had sported in the park earlier. In fact, she looks thoroughly put together, and pretty in an entirely different way. This type of beauty is right in his face, shining out harshly through her lipstick and wide, practised smile.

“Hi,” is all he manages to answer, but he quickly follows it up with a smile of his own.

“Thank you for, you know, before,” she says and he can practically feel the heat radiating off her face. Or is it his own? _Shit._

“Oh, it was… it’s no problem,” he answers, somehow sounding more casual and confident than he feels.

“Well, it would have been if I’d lost them, so… thank you. Really.” There is a change in her face that makes him want to heave for breath. She is still smiling, but it is as if the overly honeyed, slightly aggressive customer service mask vanishes. Bucky imagines that this smile is somehow more… her own.

“Anytime,” he manages with a weak imitation of his confident pre-war smirk, but it seems to do the trick because she chuckles and looks down nervously. His superhuman hearing picks up on the fact that her heart is racing in her chest and it makes his own body an all too heated place to be all of a sudden.

“So…” She bites her lip and he doesn’t know if it’s intentional, doesn’t care, because all he can suddenly think about is if that mouth tastes as sweet as it looks. “What can I get you, Mr…?”

Bucky has to swallow thickly before he can even think of anything to say that doesn’t include all the inappropriate images that are now parading through his mind.

“Bu-James,” he quickly amends. It feels right to give her his old name. His legal name. It’s not as heavy as the nickname he has borne all his life, the one loaded with guilt and horrors enough to make anyone lose sleep. “It’s James. And I’ll have a black coffee, please.”

She laughs again, as if that’s exactly what she expected him to order.

“To stay or to-go?” There is a hopeful edge lining her words and Bucky swears he hears her heart stop for just a second. A smile he has absolutely no control over falls onto his lips.

“Haven’t got any plans this morning, might as well sit down.”

It’s a lie, but he is pretty sure Steve will forgive him for skipping their morning workout this once. He will have to.

“All right James, black coffee to stay coming right up.”

“Hey, uhm… what’s your name?” He feels warm all over and he’s sure it’s not because of his sweatshirt. She tells him and he repeats the name, slowly, carefully, savouring the feel of it in his mouth.

When he takes out his wallet to pay for the coffee, she shakes her head at him.

“On the house.” She winks before turning around to get the coffee maker going and Bucky can’t help but be just a little bit relieved, seeing as all the blood in his body is divided between his face and his crotch. The way her work-skirt hug her ass doesn’t help.

He can’t remember the last time another person made him feel this way. It’s uncomfortable and disorientating and exhilarating all at the same time. A part of him, a huge part in fact, tells him to get out now and hope he never sees her again. The last seventy years of his life have taught him how precious control is, in any situation. It is what kept him alive through decades of firefights and infiltrations and other covert missions for HYDRA. And right now, looking at the cute barista, he doesn’t feel very much in control at all.

Bucky mentally kicks himself and gets his face back in order before she turns back around.

He didn’t have _any_ control in the claws of HYDRA. He wasn’t even human for all those years, just a weapon, a tool… an asset. A mindless thing created by a ruthless organisation, walking around in the shell of a dead man, whose own life was over in the blink of an eye.

The Asset controlled _him_, but Bucky Barnes has probably never had as much control in his life as he currently has.

And now that he’s officially back from the dead, he just wants something that makes sense. Not unlike his time in Wakanda. Even though goat-farming with one arm had its disadvantages, it was still the closest thing to peace he remembers feeling post-enlistment. There are not a lot of goats in New York, but something else could surely make him feel the same way and he doesn’t mind. It’s not as if he ever really got to try ‘normal’ back before it all went to hell.

Steve might have left those kinds of wishes behind in the ice if he ever really had them in the first place (Bucky is beginning to think there is only ever gonna be the next fight or the next mission when it comes to his old friend), but Bucky can’t give up the hope that now that he has been given this second chance, there might somehow be a life for him here. A life, a job, a home, happiness - and someone to share it all with.

“Here you go, James.”

Her voice shakes him out of his thoughts.

“Thanks, doll.” He makes sure to softly brush his fingers against hers when he takes the cup she holds out to him, lets his touch linger for just a second longer than necessary. She swallows when the cup and its warmth is out of reach along with his hand and he realises that she has been holding her breath. He shoots her another crooked half-smile now that he’s sure he’s affecting her too and he has to fight back a moan, because the faintest trace of arousal finds its way to him in the mix of coffee and floral perfume.

She’s wet for him.

The knowledge makes his cock twitch and he’s infinitely grateful for the counter separating them. His loose sweatpants don’t hide much.

God, he wants to lean over, bury his face in her neck, take a long, deep breath of her scent. It’s maddening.

He takes a sip of the coffee and licks his lips a little, slowly, deliberately, without breaking eye contact with her. Her sweet smile is still in place, but he might as well have licked her cunt with the way her composure stiffens and he can tell she is rubbing her thighs together behind the safety of the counter.

“Damn, you make a mean cup of coffee.”

Bucky mostly says it to have a reason not to sit down, just to keep talking to her and she doesn’t seem to mind the least.

“I suppose the last few months haven’t been a complete waste then,” she chuckles.

Despite it being morning, peak time, they’re still the only two people in the coffee shop. Normally, it means Bucky doesn’t have to suffer through standing in line and waiting through another ten orders, and he likes that, but today it means he can linger by the till and play the part of the man he used to be so many years ago. Even if it isn’t really him anymore, just _pretending_ not to have a care in the world feels good.

“How come I haven’t seen you here before?,” he asks lightly, taking another sip of coffee. He likes to think he would have noticed her before or at least remember her now if she had served him coffee in the past.

“Do you usually come in around this time?” He nods. “One of my colleagues had to go home rather urgently yesterday. Something about a family crisis; I don’t think he’s coming back. My manager asked me if I could take his shifts and I couldn’t really afford to turn down the extra hours. So here I am I suppose,” she says with a laugh. “Making coffee full time in a second-rate chain-café.” She sighs for dramatic effect.

“What am I supposed to do during the weekend then? If I need a good morning coffee, that is,” Bucky adds with a chuckle and he can _feel_ himself blush again, but he’s getting used to the sensation. And it’s worth it, he thinks smugly, when he hears her sharp intake of breath. Oh, how he’s missed this.

“Well, I… I _might_ find myself near the park sometime Saturday morning. And if I happened to be in the right mood, it’s possible that maybe I’d bring coffee enough for two…,” she trails off, biting her lip and he wants nothing more than to bite it for her, to suck on that perfectly shaped bottom lip of hers that she’s so infuriatingly flaunting in front of him.

“It would be a lucky coincidence then, if I were to run through that very park on Saturday morning, too. Maybe around eight…” It’s later than his usual routine, but he figures it would be pushing his luck to ask her to meet him any earlier on her day off.

“It certainly would. I really hope I can be persuaded to go.”

“Oh, I can be very persuasive, doll…”

There it is again, that scent of arousal gathering beneath her skirt and the sound of her heart beating a million miles a minute.

“I’m counting on it.” Her own boldness seems to surprise her and he can tell she is about to blabber something about not usually being so forward or, god forbid it, maybe even an apology, but the bell above the door chimes just then and her gaze jerks towards the two newly arrived customers, a pair of women in workout clothes.

“Persuasion will have to wait, it seems,” he smirks and leaves the counter to sit down with his cup of coffee while she takes the orders from the two women, one of whom Bucky actually recognises as the hot blonde who sometimes walks her dog around the area in the mornings. He studies her discreetly over the edge of the coffee cup. She is still undeniably attractive, but he quickly finds that her face eludes him the moment he closes his eyes.

What remains to him though, are the sparkling eyes and contagious smile of the barista. The way she bit her lip, looking up at him through her mascara-coated lashes, has him completely forgetting the taste of the coffee.

He is so distracted by the thought of her that he doesn’t notice his phone until the second ring. The device almost slips from his hand as he stubbornly fumbles it from the pocket of his sweatshirt with his flesh hand, never lifting his metal fingers from the safety of his pocket.

“Hello?,” he asks quietly.

“Hey Buck. I was just wondering where you were,” comes Steve’s voice, carefully adjusted to sound casual. Bucky almost groans at his friend’s tone. Steve is only trying to show that he cares, he knows that, but he can’t shake the feeling that America’s golden boy is turning into a helicopter parent when it comes to him.

“Just getting coffee,” Bucky mumbles guiltily. He knows Stark has a tracker in both his phone and his arm, hell, Stark probably has trackers sewn into Bucky’s clothes just to be on the safe side, so it’s not like Steve doesn’t actually know where he is. “I… I needed more time today. Sorry.”

“Oh. Bad night?”

Bucky is half a breath away from kicking the table through a window.

He only trusts Steve to wake him up when his nightmares get unbearable, no one else. He almost sent Wanda flying into the next hallway once when she heard him cry out in the night and came in to check on him. If it hadn’t been for her powers, his metal arm would have broken all of her ribs when he lunged at her still half asleep. He still feels bad about it whenever he sees her.

With Steve, however, it is as if his sleeping mind can sense who enters his room. His is the only comforting face Bucky knows and he’s grateful to have someone around who takes all of his issues in stride. The only problem is Steve’s damn saviour complex, that he thinks everything is his fault and thus, his responsibility.

“Could’ve been worse,” Bucky answers reluctantly. An outright lie is not the way to go about it.

“Sorry I wasn’t there, pal. I didn’t hear you.”

“’S fine.” He wants nothing more than to shrug it off and hang up. “I’m fine. But I, uhm… took longer than I thought. Think I’ll have to skip the morning routine.”

“Bucky…” There is a pause on the line that Bucky doesn’t like; his hand curls into a fist in his pocket. “It’s almost noon. You’ve been gone all morning, Tony’s gonna freak if you miss the briefing and you know…”

The rest of Steve’s words is a distant mutter that drifts further and further away as he slowly places the phone on the table not to drop it. His fingers are shaking. His entire arm, hell, his entire _body_ is shaking.

There is no way it could have been later than seven or eight when he came into the coffee shop. He risks a glance at the clock on the wall.

11.45.

Where did all that time go?  
__________

_[TRANSMISSION]_

_ALHABOR:_ MADE CONTACT WITH THE ASSET. DOESN’T SUSPECT ME  
_ORION:_ WHAT OF THE SEQUENCE?  
_ALHABOR:_ SAFEWORDS SEEMINGLY INTACT. FURTHER TESTING NEEDED  
_ORION:_ I WANT DAILY REPORTS  
_ALHABOR:_ UNDERSTOOD  
_ORION:_ HAIL HYDRA  
_ALHABOR:_ HAIL HYDRA


	3. Chapter 3

The run back to the compound is a complete blur. Bucky is drenched in sweat when he throws himself into the last empty chair in the briefing room, one minute before the clock hits the hour. He avoids looking at Steve altogether; he can’t bear it, the concern from his friend.  
  
Instead he spends the entire briefing staring at Stark as if he is actually saying something of importance, which he never does. Nothing relevant to him at least. Bucky is still not ready for field duty. It’s just about the only thing he can agree on with Stark. It doesn’t make much sense for him to be there at all, but Steve and Fury insist. Something about keeping him in the loop, in case he suddenly becomes fit for going on team missions.  
  
So he shows up and he tries to care.

But today, he doesn’t hear a word Stark or any of the SHIELD agents are saying. His running clothes are strangling him. He keeps checking the time on every screen within view, watching the digital numbers change every minute.  
  
How did it get so late in the day?  
  
He almost doesn’t dare blink, afraid the hours will vanish again in a brief second of inattentiveness.  
  
No matter how hard he tries, he can’t piece the morning together properly. He was talking to _her_… God, the mere thought of her makes him dizzy, everything from the scent of her perfume, to her sweet smile, to the little yellow hearts on her nails. Is it possible that he was so far gone fantasising about her that he lost himself that deeply?  
  
Could he have been asleep in his seat without realising it? No, he’s pretty sure the coffee cup was empty when he left.  
  
He doesn’t remember drinking it though.  
  
His head pounds and he vaguely thinks this is what a really bad hangover used to feel like. The sweat from the run back dries on his body as he sits there and when Tony Stark finally wraps up, Bucky feels cold as ice. Despite the hour and his long sleeves, his teeth are almost rattling in his skull. Worse is he can tell how bad he is starting to smell and it’s making his stomach roll and lunge inside of him, or at least it feels like it. If he had eaten any breakfast, he’s sure it would have been on the floor by now.  
  
He ought to get lunch though, to make up for the meal.  
  
Bucky considers it for less than a second. He knows he should eat, that he _needs_ to with his crazy super metabolism and all, but he cannot remember ever having felt less hungry. The mere idea of food, the taste of greasy fried bacon, rubbery texture of eggs in the mouth, even the slightest thought of that fucking _smell _of cooking oil, fuck, it’s enough to make him sick.  
  
As soon as people start to leave, Bucky is out of the door, ignoring Steve’s call of his name. He jumps into the first bathroom he passes and flings himself into a stall, not a second too late.  
  
He pukes into the toilet the moment his head is horizontal and it just won’t stop. Even though there’s nothing in his stomach save a bit of coffee, his body wants it gone. Badly.  
  
His flesh hand shakes holding onto the edge of the basin. The metal one is a little more calm, but he can tell his thumb has made an indent in the porcelain.  
  
Was it always this bad to throw up? He can’t recall, he hasn’t done it in seventy years. Whatever HYDRA pumped into him has kept him healthy and fit and mercifully out of situations like this.  
  
Bucky keeps heaving for several more minutes even though there’s nothing to chuck up. Just when he is sure all of his entrails are about to fall out through his mouth, the cramps finally let up and he sits back against the wall, the sour taste in his mouth almost enough to set him off again. He runs a hand through his hair; it’s sticking to his forehead and his neck in the cold sweat that has erupted all over him.  
  
“Bucky?… Are you in there, pal?”  
  
Even though he knows Steve has seen him at his absolute worst, he tries to pull himself together. As quick as he can without stumbling he gets on his feet and splashes some cold water in his face. Takes a few slurps from the tap too to clear his mouth. The man staring back at him from the mirror above the sink is paler than he remembers, and his eyes are a little wider, but otherwise Bucky doesn’t look as out of sorts as he feels.  
  
“I’m okay, Steve,” he answers with a strain in his voice as he exits the stall. Steve doesn’t look too convinced, standing against the wall with his arms crossed and a frown on his face.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Yeah. All good. Probably just need some more sleep.” He shrugs and realises that he does in fact feel exhausted. “I, uh… might have overdone the running a little bit.”  
  
“How long were you gone?”  
  
Bucky bites back a remark about minding his own business.  
  
“Left around five-ish I think,” he says in what he hopes is a casual tone that hides his annoyance. And the fact that the nausea is bubbling back up already.  
  
“Jesus Christ…” Steve runs a hand through his perfect blonde hair, looking equally concerned and impressed. “That’s almost seven hours Buck! That ain’t a run, that’s…” His voice stops short of whatever word he was about to say, but Bucky can guess. _Torture. Self-harm. Inhuman…_  
  
They hold each other’s gazes across the bathroom for a moment of hard-strung silence, before Steve averts his eyes. “It’s a problem,” he says then, clearly using all of his self-control to sound somewhat calm.  
  
Bucky wishes for the millionth time that Steve wouldn’t try so damn hard. His old friend is walking on eggshells around him and it’s driving him up the wall. The small army of therapists and doctors working on him already treat him like a brittle antiquity and the other Avengers as though he’s some sort of unstable explosive.  
Stark is the only one who doesn’t seem to care if he breaks or blows up and it would be refreshing if it wasn’t for the fact that every one of his vicious jibes and insults makes Bucky feel like less than the dirt under Stark’s shoes. Of course, he deserves it, there’s no doubt in Bucky’s mind about that; sometimes one of the others tells Stark to back off, but Bucky doesn’t see the point. He_ is_ a killer, he _is_ a monster.  
  
Should he ever forget it, they’re all there to remind him with their caution and their adjusted voices.  
  
Bucky Barnes is still not really human, is he?  
  
If only _Steve_, of all people, would just treat him normally, he’s sure it wouldn’t be so excruciating to exist.  
  
He bites down on his lip.  
  
“Yeah, well, like I said… I needed the extra time.” Bucky fights the urge to cross his arms and sticks his hands into his pockets instead. To think that he was almost happy only this morning.  
  
“Bucky, you know you can talk to me about-,” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts him off before he begins to sound too much like one of his shrinks.  
  
“Stark’s parents, okay?,” he all but hisses, no longer able to look Steve in the eyes. “I dreamt about Stark’s parents again, saw their faces and I just… forget it. I’m_ fine,_ Steve.” His voice almost cracks at the last words. He needs to find another bathroom without Steve in it so he can puke his guts out in peace.  
  
The way Steve looks at him, hurt, shocked, utterly _helpless_, feels a little bit better than stepping on a landmine and almost having both feet blown off, but only a little. Bucky can’t bear it.  
  
Before Steve manages an answer, Bucky pushes past him out of the bathroom and down the hall as quickly as possible.  
  
Moments later, he hauls himself into his own room and locks the door behind him. A weary air of guilt, worn threadbare over the past few months, scrunches his features as he trudges to the toilet, kneels down and vomits again. It’s quite fitting for how sick he feels when he thinks of Steve’s expression - the single constant in his life and he’s screwing that up too.  
Steve just wants to help him. It’s a quality in very short supply and Bucky knows he should value it more than he has done so far. He should try to be more open, more cooperative. After all, it’s _Steve_…  
  
When his stomach stops fighting, he peels off his clothes and crawls into the shower for the second time that day. It’s quickly becoming the only place he feels remotely comfortable. No one to judge him but himself, no dreams but the ones he chooses.  
  
As the water starts to trickle down his body, he begins to relax. It takes longer than usual, he’s already so worked up from the day and it’s not even two pm yet. But he forces himself to let go of everything, at least for a little while. His muscles unclench slowly as he lets all thoughts seep from his mind until he is thoroughly unburdened in the little safe space of steam and water.  
  
Bucky’s flesh hand glides down between his legs and takes hold of his cock. Practicality tells him an orgasm will help him loosen up enough to maybe catch up on a little sleep before dinner and still, he hesitates.  
  
He knows exactly what he wants to see, who he wants to see, but he’s afraid to try and imagine her.  
  
_It’s okay, it’s just a fantasy._  
  
Bucky groans and gives himself an uncertain pump, then another.  
  
_I won’t mind, James. You can think of me. Let me help you feel good…_  
  
Her whisper in his head is as clear as if she had been standing behind him, breathing the words on his neck. He can almost feel her hands glide down his shoulders, his arms, until they close around his wrist and gently makes him let go.  
  
_Let me take care of it for you._  
  
Her much softer hands replaces his own around his cock and he can feel her body press into his back, her lips on his shoulder, her nipples against his skin, her hip nudging his ass, her arms tight around him, her scent of coffee and floral perfume filling up the air.  
  
He hardens in her grip before she even starts moving.  
  
_See? You need this. It’s okay, James, I think of you too_.  
  
“Fuck…”  
  
The way her fingers slide up the underside of his length, trailing the vein there with her painted nails is almost painful and he moans loudly.  
  
_Do you want to know what I imagine? What I think of whit my fingers inside of me?_  
  
Bucky can’t hold the sounds back anymore. He groans at the images flashing through his head, of her hands that he has already touched now stroking him so intimately, and _dear god_, those same fingers disappearing into her slick, warm folds while his name falls from her lips.  
  
He moans again and thrusts his hips up a little to meet her strokes, bites down hard on his lip when her thumb traces the head of his cock. Both of her hands work relentlessly on him, one fast, one slow and he can feel every muscle in him contract until he’s trembling and the only thing on his mind is the release he desperately needs.  
  
_I think of this_, she whispers and the words are a brief chill on the back of his neck beneath the heat of the shower and the heat building inside of him._ I think of this big, hard cock inside of me, stretching me…_  
  
There is a bit of hot water running into his open mouth as he throws his head back, but he hardly notices anymore. He is panting, nearing. His legs are shaking. He is so close, he’s going to-  
  
_…stretching me so good, filling me up until I-_  
  
He cries out with the release before he can stop himself and his vision flashes into white.  
  
The force of his orgasm is so intense he staggers and leans on the tile wall. Cum covers both his shuddering hands and his stomach. It takes a while for the shower water to get rid of it all; he watches the white fluid slowly run and circle into the drain like a peppermint swirl.  
  
Bucky can’t remember the last time he came so hard, but then again, he can’t remember the last time he came from a fantasy of this kind either.  
  
Her smile when she looked at him from behind the counter in the coffee shop is the only thing he sees as he turns off the water and towels himself dry. A part of him feels like a creep for having used her to get off, or at least the image of her, but Bucky is so tired of feeling guilty and at the same time, he can’t help but hope she really _does_ think of him, too.  
Guilt is too easy, he decides as he wraps the towel around his hips and leaves the bathroom. His life has become one long agonising guilt-trip for simply _being alive_ and while he is still adamant he is to blame for all that Stark and everyone else accuses him of, he is starting to feel sick of it.  
  
Maybe she can be the one person he doesn’t have to feel guilty about. If he can allow himself as much, that sliver of normalcy she offers with her sweetness and her adoring eyes, perhaps somewhere in the chaos of the twenty-first century even Bucky Barnes has a chance of healing.  
  
_“Do you honestly believe that?”_  
  
The voice makes him snap his head up. He briefly meets his own startled gaze in the mirror above his desk and in the span of a single heartbeat, every trace of warmth is gone from Bucky’s body.  
  
Right there, behind him, in his room in the compound is the monster that haunts his dreams and sometimes his waking hours too: staring back at Bucky from above the edge of the black mask covering half his face, are the cold, calculating eyes of the Asset.  
  
“No… how…”  
  
“_I’m never far away.”_ Bucky watches in silent terror as the Asset takes four almost languid steps towards him and stops right behind him. _“This mind…”_ The Asset lifts two silver metal fingers and taps Bucky’s temple. _“…isn’t just yours. Not anymore.”_  
  
“Shut up,” he manages weakly and even with the mask on, Bucky can tell the Asset is smirking.  
  
_“It’s been a long time, but I gotta hand it to you. This new life is quite comfortable. I’m especially gonna enjoy that pretty little plaything of yours. Looked real good in that tight skirt today, didn’t she?”_  
  
The word doesn’t exist in Bucky’s cache of languages to describe the dread flooding his veins then. There’s no longer blood inside of him, only ice water that bites and rips as it courses through him. His hands are gripping the edge of the desk so tightly it’s a wonder it doesn’t splinter.  
  
“Don’t… don’t touch…,” he tries, but his voice is sticking in his throat like a knife with a serrated edge that hurts worse the more he fights to get it out.  
  
_“Or what?”_  
  
The Asset slowly turns his head and Bucky follows the direction of his eyes in the mirror, somehow already knowing what is happening, what he is going to find. His galloping heart nearly crashes through his chest anyway.  
  
She’s lying on the bed behind them.  
  
Asleep, Bucky realises with rising panic, no longer wearing the work uniform, but instead a silky little one-piece that drapes to show off every single detail of her body from the point of her hip to the rounds of her soft nipples. _His_ girl sleeping in _his _bed, wearing something for only _him_ to see. And he wishes she were anywhere else.  
  
A contented sigh escapes her mouth and she turns a little, making the delicate fabric drag enough to allow him the conclusion she hasn’t bothered with underwear.  
  
_“You sure know how to pick ‘em, Barnes. Quite the little dreamgirl, isn’t she?”_  
  
“No…”  
  
The Asset sits down on the edge of the bed and reaches a gloved hand out to rest on her thigh. She hums in her sleep as that _monster_ slowly strokes her skin, inching closer and closer to her barely covered folds. He raises an eyebrow without looking away from Bucky and dips his fingers beneath the fabric, starting to draw languid circles there. Bucky wants to rip the entire arm off him.  
  
He wants to call out her name, tell her to run, but the words keep lodging themselves somewhere behind his lips and the Asset just sits there calmly, working her clit while watching him with satisfied triumph gleaming in his eyes.  
  
_“Do you think she dreams of us?,”_ the Asset almost purrs as she lets out a moan in her sleep and bucks her hips up to meet his movements.  
  
“Stop it,” Bucky whispers, his entire face contorted in rage. It is as if he is frozen in place in front of the mirror; both of his hands are locked around the edge of the desk that he wants to fling into the Asset’s smug face and his feet are solidly planted on the floor. He can’t move. Only watch as the Asset starts to rub her clit faster and the sound she makes when she finally comes undone has him hardening beneath the towel. Then the scent of her cum washes over him and he has to bite back a moan of his own. It makes his knees go weak.  
  
_“I don’t think I want to stop, Barnes. Your little squeeze is delicious.” _The Asset holds up his hand so that Bucky can clearly see the white cum running down the black glove. _“And she seems to like it, doesn’t she?”_  
  
White-hot anger surges through Bucky’s frozen body as the Asset takes a deep breath of her essence covering his fingers.  
  
_Get away from her,_ he shouts inside his head; blood is thundering so hard in his ears that he almost misses her confused little voice.  
  
“James?…” She looks at the Asset, then meets Bucky’s eyes in the mirror. Her heartrate is faster than normal, probably the aftershock of the orgasm. “What’s happening?”  
  
“Get out…,” he wheezes in that strained, almost-not-there-voice that is all he can manage to force out. What is wrong with him?  
  
Her eyes widen when she realises his panic and she moves to get off the bed. She doesn’t even make it to the side before the Asset grabs her shoulder and drags her back.  
  
_“Not so fast, pretty girl.” _She shrieks as the assassin pushes her back down into the mattress and quickly straddles her before she can roll away. _“I’m gonna have a little more fun with you.”_  
  
“Let go of me!,” she hisses and lashes out at his face, at the mask, but the Asset easily captures her wrist in his silver metal hand before she can make contact and pins it above her head.  
  
_“Not yet,”_ he says quietly, getting hold of her other wrist as well. She is completely locked beneath him. The Asset takes his time to admire the view before him, seeming to relish in the way she squirms uselessly between his legs.  
  
“James, please. Help me,” she begs, her voice unsteady and shrill and it rips at Bucky’s very soul to hear. He is trembling in place, but that’s all. Why can’t he just fucking move?!  
  
The Asset grabs the crotch of her flimsy one-piece and tears through it, pushing it out of the way. She immediately struggles harder, but the Asset merely squashes her wrists tighter and she cries out in pain.  
  
_Stop hurting her,_ Bucky mouths desperately. Nothing but air comes out of his mouth, but he’s sure the Asset can hear him. _Let go of her, you have me, you can do whatever you want to me, kill me if you like, just don’t hurt her._  
  
The Asset audibly chuckles and turns his head to meet Bucky’s gaze in the mirror.  
  
_“You shouldn’t have shown her to me, Barnes. What is yours, is mine.” _He undoes a buckle and a zipper with casual indifference only using his flesh hand. The motion is efficient and Bucky knows from the worst, most repressed parts of his memories that it’s from experience. He always lies whenever people asks him if he remembers all the people The Winter Soldier killed, tells them yes, because he cannot bear to unearth certain victims yet without surely shattering himself beyond repair.  
  
When the Asset frees his cock from its restraints of his gear, already hard and leaking, and lines himself up with her exposed entrance, the faces of all those forgotten victims seeps back into Bucky’s mind and he wants to die. It would be easier than to face those ghosts, the ones he didn’t just kill but wishes he had.  
  
_Please, just let go of her! You can have this body, I don’t care. I won’t fight you for it if you let her go. Listen to me!_, he yells inside his head, but the Asset doesn’t acknowledge it. _Don’t fucking touch her!_  
  
“James, help me!,” the girl cries, the one that isn’t a ghost, the one he hasn’t… “You don’t have to do this, please don’t do this, just let me go… let me go, no! Stop, please, no! No!”  
  
Her words disappears into a scream when the Asset plunges into her in one unforgiving thrust. He leans back and closes his eyes, savouring the feeling of her tight walls around him.  
  
Bucky clenches his own eyes shut at the sight, flinching with every cry and sob the Asset now wrings from her as he starts to thrust his hips at a brutal pace without letting her adjust properly. He can’t look at it. He can’t stand there and look at the Asset hurting his girl and not being able to stop it without going mad.  
  
The sound of her crying is bad enough.  
  
_“Wanna know how good she feels?,”_ the Asset growls and the sobs turn back into screams. Bucky immediately knows he’s made her cum. Again. Even in his petrified state of terror and disgust, the thought of her warm, silken cunt throbbing around his length almost makes him see stars and he can’t remember a time he has ever been more ashamed of himself.  
  
“Stop it,” he gets out, choking on the words and the fear and the wrath. _Please just stop it._  
  
_“But I’m not done with her yet. I’m sure she has more to give,”_ the Asset says between breaths. Instead of slowing down his thrusts, he increases the force behind each movement, jolting her body harshly each time he bottoms out. _“Come on, pretty girl, you can take more than this. Don’t hold back on me.”_  
  
Bucky can tell from the desperate, high-pitched sounds she’s trying to stifle that he is not letting her come down from the orgasm. Instead, he pushes her right into the next one. Tears are streaming from her tightly shut eyes as the high shoots through her and the Asset still doesn’t let up. He let’s go of her wrists and grabs a hold of her throat instead; the metal fingers closes easily around her neck, unyielding despite how she now claws and scratches at his lethal prosthetic. He is far enough above her for her fingers to only graze the mask in her turmoil.  
  
Somehow, Bucky’s eyes have managed to fall open again and he almost wishes he could gorge them out entirely.  
  
_Let go, you’ll kill her!_  
  
She’s gasping for breath through the tight grasp on her throat, her struggle slowly growing weaker.  
  
_“She wouldn’t be the first,”_ is all the Asset answers before he reaches down and pinches her clit. The sound that escapes her then is so horrifyingly raw and desperate Bucky can’t believe it’s coming from the same girl who had in a soft, sweet voice asked him about something as mundane as coffee.   
  
Her back arches off the bed and her arms and legs flail in a vain attempt to get his hand away from her overstimulated bundle of nerves. It’s too much. Every part of her is shaking violently under the unbroken string of orgasms the Asset forces out of her pinned down body.  
  
He lets out a groan and his hips finally begin to stutter and lose their ruthless pace. He lifts his hand from between her legs and for half a second, Bucky thinks it’s over, that he’s finally done with her. She will be in pain, but she’s alive. They both are. That’s all that matters. He has already pricked his finger on the peak of relief when the Asset raises his flesh hand and removes the mask.  
  
She stops struggling. Stops heaving for breath.  
  
Her bloodshot eyes just stare up at the face of the man she knows as James in shocked disbelief as her arms fall limply to her sides. The Asset’s lips spread in a sinister smile as he watches the fight leave her completely.  
  
He thrusts into her one final time, spilling his cum with a deep groan and his metal hand tightens on her throat until her eyes roll back in her head and she goes still.  
  
There is a strangled cry, like a small animal being trod on, and Bucky realises the sound is coming from himself.  
  
_You… you killed her…_  
  
The vicious grin on the Asset’s face turns into a knowing smirk.  
  
_“Did I?”_  
  
Bucky tries once again to free his hands from their cramped hold of the edge of the desk, only to find that he’s no longer standing at it. Instead, his eyes are looking right down at his own dark vibranium fingers clutching the dead girl’s neck.  
  
His knees are solidly planted on the bed, her body trapped beneath him, his cock still inside of her…  
  
With an agonised howl, Bucky sits up in the bed and stares at an empty room.  
  
His heart is thumping so hard and rapidly against his ribs, his entire frame trembles with it. The images from the nightmare flashes before his eyes every time he blinks and he rubs them in the hope that they’ll leave him alone. Both his hands come away wet with tears.  
  
This has been the worst dream he has had in months. He slowly clenches and unclenches his shaking hands to make sure they still obey. That they wouldn’t somehow…  
  
_She wouldn’t be the first._  
  
He curls into a mess of sheets and limbs and pillows and let the crying rake through him. Everything hurts. It’s hard just to get air into his lungs.  
  
There is a gentle tap on the d,or, so quiet he almost misses it.  
  
“Buck? Pal, you in there?,” comes Steve’s soft voice. “You didn’t come down for dinner and… I, uh… Bucky, I just… if I was outta line earlier, I’m sorry. Don’t want to bother you, I just gotta know if we’re good?”  
  
A particularly violent sob leaves Bucky before he can prevent it and Steve’s enhanced hearing picks it up immediately. He opens the door carefully, giving Bucky time enough to tell him to go to hell, but he doesn’t.   
  
“Oh, Buck,” Steve sighs when he sees his friend and quickly shuts the door again, before kneeling down next to the tangled heap of bedding and supersoldier.  
  
Bucky reaches out with his flesh hand and grabs onto Steve’s shirt   
  
“Don’t leave,” he manages almost desperately between sobs, afraid of how gravelly his voice sounds, afraid it’ll disappear again.  
  
“Of course not.” Steve settles in next to him and places an arm around Bucky, awkwardly at first because of Bucky’s wrapped up fetal position, but with a bit of shuffling and wiggling they make it work.   
  
“Of course I’d never leave you.”

__________

_From Alhabor’s private notes, page torn out and crumbled:_  
  
I miscalculated today’s dose. Not enough to kill him which would have been a fucking nightmare. Didn’t include it in the report, hope I won’t have to. Must be more careful from now on. Too close to the target for mistakes at this rate.


End file.
